This invention relates to a method of continuously producing bean curd with a garnish placed therein (hereinafter also referred to as bean curd with garnish) and an apparatus to continuously producing the same.
A word "garnish (small amount of food to add flavor)" used throughout this application is little different from the word "garnish" in its ordinary sense as a garnish in its ordinary sense is added for a decoration purpose. However, the word "garnish" used in this specification is not used for a decoration purpose but for a purpose of adding extra flavor and taste.
In the field of bean curd production, it has been generally a common practice to produce the bean curd by a batch processing. More specifically, the method of producing the bean curd follows a steps in the order as follows: a container is filled with soymilk at a certain volume and then a certain amount of coagulant is added to mature and solidify the soymilk in the container. Thereafter, the soymilk in a solidified & matured state is placed in a water filled tank to cool down and subsequently the fully cooled down soybean is cut into pieces of desired shapes such as rectangular solid or cube.
The bean curd made according to the conventional method contains in essence soymilk with a coagulant; therefore, such bean curd does not have much of added value as a market product. In addition, since the conventional method uses a batch process, cutting down the production time of such bean curd has a limit. Consequently, there is room for improvement in terms of quality as a marketable product and a cut down of the production time.